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Hi, welcome to the discussion area for the Kill Team Tactica!

We started this section as we played a lot of Kill Team games in our local meta, noticing there's a few incorrect assumptions that even smart, veteran players make. While it's a 200-point game, it's not JUST a 200-point game, so we really consolidated all our experience to just warn great strategists like you in advance. This Tactica is a short summary of what we've seen work under Kill Team conditions, plus some highlights on top units that perform particularly well, especially those that have been overlooked in normal large-scale games. This is an ongoing discussion for something that we find very tactical.

Disclaimer - We're finding new Killer Kill Team Tactics all the time, so we're always re-evaluating and revising. There's so many combinations to try! We actually have a lot of fun doing this.

Last Update: Jan 14, 2014

Units Analysed: Top units from the latest Space Marines, Orks, Imperial Guard Codices

Latest Changes: We basically got back together after the holidays and looked at the new Kill Team supplement on sale now. Previously, we used a ruleset that was published for free for Warhammer World events, before this release. There's a lot of differences, plus a lot of new possibilities. All things considered, we're actually much happier with this complete version, which we really look forward to playing more with.

As per my last update, I've made massive changes. At 1st, it was a long treatise on the Kill Team rules.

But no one wants to read that! So I boiled down the key things 1st time Kill Team players overlook.

Then everything else, I'm going to put in Codex-specific parts. Players want to read about their own armies.

Thus, the changes are for YOU, our esteemed readers. Hope you find it helpful!

---

UPDATE - An analysis of Space Marine units for Kill Team, and sample army lists, completed!

We will return to look at the other MEQs at a later point.

I really like it. I learned quite a lot. Wondering if you could do IG after DA ORKS!

 Insane Smile wrote:
Wondering if you could do IG after DA ORKS!

This is a very good idea. Thanks for this suggestion. I've personally been very interested in IG. We'll make this so.

Neat, I'm going to keep an eye on this one as we're having a Kill-Team day ourselves some time next month.

I'm also personally glad that GW put in some hard counters against the Riptide and certain vehicles, something they learned the hard way last time round at their Nottingham event earlier this year.

 BrookM wrote:
Neat, I'm going to keep an eye on this one as we're having a Kill-Team day ourselves some time next month.

1st, really glad our experience sharing will be helpful. Because we are starting to believe this:

Don't go into a 200 pt Kill Team with assumptions from a 2,000 pt normal game.

Like we were debating SM Assault Squads. 6th ed is the dakka ed, etc., but they're different in KT.

So the hard thing with this isn't to remember...it is to forget, all the habits that aren't true.

Writing these articles helps us, too. In organizing the info, our KT circle appreciate everything...in a totally new light.

And there's so much yet to try.

 BrookM wrote:
I'm also personally glad that GW put in some hard counters against the Riptide and certain vehicles, something they learned the hard way last time round at their Nottingham event earlier this year.

And this was exactly why I personally committed to this article. Those free rules...they are ready now.

The Warhammer World events just brought all the bugs out of the woodwork, like that Riptide, also:

- Doom of Malantai lists
- That Blood Angel Librarian Dreadnought
- Using Nurglings as Leaders because they have Ld 10

So, the new rules were really copied from Combat Patrol aka 40k in 40 minutes, but they perfect sense.

I think it's been a long time since GW brought something this polished to the table.

And we're aiming, even with this tactica, to be as polished. Simple, concise, yet also precise.

So thanks, I hope to fill this out some more within this month. It's tricky, with so many things to try.

I'm glad that the Wave Serpent is no longer allowed.

But as said, really looking forward to the next update, this is certainly something I'm going to share with the group.

A major update today, Ork unit analyses.

Orks were very interesting. The Kill Team condition really turned some of their units around. Some bad units in big games are really good in Kill Team, while a few popular choices actually do worse in these 200 point games.

We played a lot of Orks as my closest collaborator in these articles and I are Greenskin fans. We kept this short, but we looked at a lot of options normal people wouldn't take.

As such, this army analyses is probably most shocking.

UPDATE - Now Orks are complete with sample lists!

Definitely following this, me and my friends have been playing a lot of smaller games lately. Thumbs up for your work put into this.

Requesting a look at the Sons of Russ if I may?

Great work!

Our group just played some Kill Teams games last night, and I played Orks myself. I wish I had seen this article beforehand, because Fleshbane was sorely needed versus those White Scars bikes.

My list:

Kommandoz x5
-Burnaz x2, one with the Rending SR which was awesome!

Boys x16
-Shootas
-Rampage on one boy
-Nob w/Eavy Armor and Hatred

The Nob got blasted immediately in both games. However, he is pretty tough with 2 wounds I just need to add more survivability in place of killing power. For instance, FNP or Shrouded. Shoota boyz just downed Marines with concentrated fire, but struggled vs White Scars Bikes.

I took the Kommandoz just to be casual, but also because I got 2 Burnaz in a minimum size unit.

Next time, I'm going to try Deffkoptaz!

I just thought about something: Deffkoptaz have Hit and Run. Granted if their Initiative were a bit higher this might be more useful. Don't forget Furious Charge, Big Bombs (give the Kopta Rending or Ignores Cover!) which can be used even if it Turbo Boosted!

This is an awesome article. Kill teams has always been one of my favourite game types, so seeing a tactica for it is pretty damn cool

I'd like to see an analysis of Tau, moreover a look into the viability of Farsight Enclaves (Yes, I want to run a full Crisis suit Kill Team )

Hi guys, thank you for following the article and your continued readership. And leadership. We continue to read everyone's post, to consolidate these experiences.

Just a disclaimer: we are revising as we go along. 40k is quite papers-scissors-rock; everything has a counter. In a Kill Team game, even more so.

Sandyman11 wrote:Requesting a look at the Sons of Russ if I may?

We'll put this after Imperial Guard then...because it's very popular. Space Wolves have such a variety of units (beasts, cavalry, etc.) in a single Codex.

Previously, we had Eldar. I had nominated this as it's considered a top Codex right now, but because of that...it doesn't need more analysis.

Dez wrote:Great work!

Our group just played some Kill Teams games last night, and I played Orks myself. I wish I had seen this article beforehand, because Fleshbane was sorely needed versus those White Scars bikes.

My list:

Kommandoz x5
-Burnaz x2, one with the Rending SR which was awesome!

Boys x16
-Shootas
-Rampage on one boy
-Nob w/Eavy Armor and Hatred

The Nob got blasted immediately in both games. However, he is pretty tough with 2 wounds I just need to add more survivability in place of killing power. For instance, FNP or Shrouded. Shoota boyz just downed Marines with concentrated fire, but struggled vs White Scars Bikes.

I took the Kommandoz just to be casual, but also because I got 2 Burnaz in a minimum size unit.

Next time, I'm going to try Deffkoptaz!

I just thought about something: Deffkoptaz have Hit and Run. Granted if their Initiative were a bit higher this might be more useful. Don't forget Furious Charge, Big Bombs (give the Kopta Rending or Ignores Cover!) which can be used even if it Turbo Boosted!

Way to play a themed list, it looks like you were going for a Blood Axe Kommandos feel because they're the recon Kill Team type of the Orks.

I'm doing something similar. I'm taking Grot Tanks, replacing the Grots with Orks, to make tank-like Warbuggies...an Armoured Krumpany.

So we, the guys who put this Tactica together, want to know the Killer Kill Team Tactics...but we always gimp ourselves for extra challenge.

Deff Koptas were great. I took out 2 Transports in Turn 1 with a Kopta this month, with a Big Shoot with Armourbane. Great maneuverability.

At the moment, I found 2 Deff Koptas to be optimal. At 2 Wounds and Hit & Run, they always survived longer than I thought they would.

liquidjoshi wrote:This is an awesome article. Kill teams has always been one of my favourite game types, so seeing a tactica for it is pretty damn cool

I'd like to see an analysis of Tau, moreover a look into the viability of Farsight Enclaves (Yes, I want to run a full Crisis suit Kill Team )

Cool, let's take a look at that ASAP. I haven't played against Tau, but very interested to see this myself.

Nice work guys, a good read.

One point that I found hypocritical, and also disagree with, is where you state that attack bikes are "UNNECESSARY" yet had a specific section highlighting the advantages of the heavy bolter in Kill Teams.

Personally I've found the attack bike to be a great warlord choice when running a SM bike list in killteams. It has the firepower to potentially rack up many kills over the course of the game, and therefore receive a greater modifier on the warlord upgrades after the battle.

Statistically it doubles the durability of a normal biker, this is important if it is your warlord. it also has the range to keep it out of trouble if you need to deny those VP's whilst still laying down some fire.

Finally for an attack bike warlord I would certainly recommend the 'shrouded' USR.
This + jink + Whitescar USR gives a 2+ Cover save. A T5 2W 2+ Save warlord and specialist is a good to deny the opposition those points.

Just my thoughts.

I think it's hilarious about the Grot Tanks, that's exactly what I was going to try next!

That White Scars Attack Bike sounds nasty.

Kind of comes across as all theory a little bit. Alot of what I read in the Ork tactica about whats good in the full size game, or whats bad for whatever reason, is kinda... really off, and some of the rules, such as warbikers or deffkoptas caring about jink, are incorrect.

Your sample Ork boyz list is illegal. 3 special weapons requires 30 boyz but you have 26, and you can't mix and match shoota and slugga in the same unit!

Its still a good read, but yeah it could do with a few tweaks

Can't wait t see the Guard tactics and lists. Also, what's with Necrons? Do they get RP if they're broken up into 1-man squads?

Thanks for your feedback, guys.

Big Blind Bill wrote:Nice work guys, a good read.

One point that I found hypocritical, and also disagree with, is where you state that attack bikes are "UNNECESSARY" yet had a specific section highlighting the advantages of the heavy bolter in Kill Teams.

Personally I've found the attack bike to be a great warlord choice when running a SM bike list in killteams. It has the firepower to potentially rack up many kills over the course of the game, and therefore receive a greater modifier on the warlord upgrades after the battle.

Statistically it doubles the durability of a normal biker, this is important if it is your warlord. it also has the range to keep it out of trouble if you need to deny those VP's whilst still laying down some fire.

Finally for an attack bike warlord I would certainly recommend the 'shrouded' USR.
This + jink + Whitescar USR gives a 2+ Cover save. A T5 2W 2+ Save warlord and specialist is a good to deny the opposition those points.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I was wondering about this, too. I'll discuss this entry with the reviewers, but I think the problem was the points cost.

I'm going to give this 2 days for the contributor of this section to get back to me. He was very pleased with the new Codex, I'm curious why this was rated poorly, too.

Dakkamite wrote:Kind of comes across as all theory a little bit. Alot of what I read in the Ork tactica about whats good in the full size game, or whats bad for whatever reason, is kinda... really off, and some of the rules, such as warbikers or deffkoptas caring about jink, are incorrect.

Your sample Ork boyz list is illegal. 3 special weapons requires 30 boyz but you have 26, and you can't mix and match shoota and slugga in the same unit!

Thank you for glancing over our work and commenting. Our group actually play quick games for each entry. The small-scale of Kill Team lets us do this fast.

(To the amusement of my FLGS, I now have a bunch of models dubbed the Red Marines because I've used them as different Chapters to try Chapter Tactics.)

I'm the one consolidating everyone's test runs, and I'm not the expert on every army, so it is very possible I made a mistake due to the volume of the guide.

Dakkamite wrote:really off, and some of the rules, such as warbikers or deffkoptas caring about jink, are incorrect.

Thank you, upon receiving your feedback, I immediately returned to the article to correct, but I'm not sure what you found incorrect. So far I've not changed this at all:

Ork Bikerz - Take an Ork, make him go faster, make him tougher, add in a better saving throw, give him much better Shoota, then let him keep his Slugga & Choppa. That's what you have with an Ork Biker. Sure, they're more expensive, but they're certainly worth the cost. Better yet, in a Kill Team game, they can be scoring units and claim the objective in the final turns of a game. Their Dakkagunz make good use of the USRs, so they can be good search & destroy units. They're bad to the bone and good for your Kill Team. Just be careful, their bumped up T5 is still vulnerable to Fleshbane Specialists.

I was going to add their 4+ save is a Cover Save (Exhaust Cloud) and can be negated with Ignore Cover Specialists. Far as I can tell, I didn't mention anything about Jink here.

As for Deffkoptas, I mentioned Jink because they're Jetbikes. They benefit from Jink saves, which they'll use when they're targeted with Heavy Weapons that penetrate their 4+.

I'm afraid I cannot find exactly where you have a contention with these entries.

Dakkamite wrote:Your sample Ork boyz list is illegal. 3 special weapons requires 30 boyz but you have 26, and you can't mix and match shoota and slugga in the same unit!

I found this interesting. I have copied and pasted this whole section, without editing any of the wording, only formatting to highlight some issues.

Dakka Boyz
• 18 Boyz w/ Shootas
• 1 Boy w/ Big Shoota (Specialist: Ignore Cover)
• 1 Boy w/ Big Shoota (Specialist: Armourbane)

Choppy Boyz
• 8 Boyz w/ Sluggas & Choppas
• 1 Boy w/ Rokkit Launcha (Specialist: Twin-Linked)
• 1 Boy w/ Slugga & Choppa (Leader)

Total Points Cost: 200
Total Model Count: 30


This sample Kill Team is not just for Ork players to see, but for others who have a "know your enemy" approach to strategy. This is the simplest horde strategy, so obvious that it is often overlooked by anyone who doesn't field Orks normally. It's so basic that to other players it may seem like cheating, but whereas they may see 200 points and think "what's the best strategic unit I can bring", an Ork player sees those same 200 points and think "huh...that's just a regular mob."

At the same time, we are covering the bases with anti-sniper and anti-tank, specifically with its Big Shootas and Rokkit Launchas Specialists. The Ignore Cover Big Shoota Specialist is...a generalist, he's got a decent change against any target. The Armourbane Specialist is anti-tank, but is still effective against infantry. The Twin-Linked Rokkit Launcha is obviously anti-tank, but is also good against anti-Marine-equivalents. You may be surprised why I didn't put Armourbane on the Rokkit Launcha, but the fact is it doesn't need it due to how Kill Team only allows light vehicles, whereas giving it to the Big Shoota now gives you a contingency. This is one of the nuances in Kill Team, where we found spreading abilities so that there's no single obvious target, where Specialists can cover for each other in case one is Wounded, is the successful strategy. And whereas other Heavy Weapon models may need to get Relentless, all these Ork weapons are Assault, making them efficient.

Those Specialists will probably be picked off, but by the time, either they already fulfilled their anti-sniper and anti-tank missions, or they bought enough time for the Boyz to get into range to finish stragglers off. We're also making a "Blood Axe Leader", a cheap model just to hide away to deny Victory Points, hehe. Also note the deal structure, we're using the 2 Troop Slots in Kill Team to have both Shootas (better for the early game) and Sluggas & Choppas (better for the endgame).

This Kill Team's simplicity isn't due to a lack of strategy; its simplicity IS the strategy. Instead of single mission critical models, we've put in so much redundancy you'll be able to adapt on the battlefield.

I have 30 Boyz. I have them taken from 2 Troop Slots, using the FOC deliberately to mix a squad of 20 and a squad of 10. That was the purpose of the exercise.

But thank you for your feedback anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 KommissarKiln wrote:
Can't wait t see the Guard tactics and lists. Also, what's with Necrons? Do they get RP if they're broken up into 1-man squads?

Inside the Imperial Guard, which I was working on before having to spend time reply to the above, hides the single most devastating unit in Kill Team.

I like what they did with Necrons. They keep RP by simply saying it's treated as the Ever Living rule, which is how you treat Independent Characters.

May someone post the rules pack pls?

I can't find any download link from the GW site anymore..

 Toban wrote:
May someone post the rules pack pls?

I can't find any download link from the GW site anymore..

No problem, brother. Here's the link, that still works for me, also used in the Article:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=3500001&aId=26200004a

Here's the link direct to the PDF file, a complete pack, bundled with what used to be Errata:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3460063a_Kill_Team_Rules_Pack_2013.4.pdf

If those don't work for you, let me know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've reached the word/character count maximum for this Article. I was about to post the Imperial Guard unit reviews for Kill Team.

I'm going to figure out what's the best way to present this, like a general Kill Team Tactica, then Imperium Units, then Xenos, etc.

 Kommissar Waaaghrick wrote:
Inside the Imperial Guard, which I was working on before having to spend time reply to the above, hides the single most devastating unit in Kill Team.

Will be interesting to hear which unit gets that honour.

Thank you for the this-time-working link.

Just an idea.. what about new SOBs?

This is awesome! I've been trying to build 500 point lists to start playing with my dad, just to introduce him to the game and have something fun to do when we arent watching sports...

I just feel that 40k has soooo many rules and things to consider i'd been discouraged. This killteam game is perfect and i can get the models painted up SO much faster. Really great article looking forward to updates!

Kommissar Waaaghrick I have to thank you for this wonderful article.

Waiting for new adds just let me tell you that this have already motivated me and a lot of my friends.

This eve we're gonna try out a little campaing of 4 Teams.

Just becasuse I do have the painted minis I will try this little list:

Iron Hands CT
TR - 6x Tacticals - Combi-grav - 4x Boltguns - HB (ignore Cover). 104
FA - 5x Assault Marines - 2x Flamers (Fleshbane / Shred) - 2x bp/cs - Serg. as Leader - no JP - Rhino. 95

Just not sure yet if making my Ass. Serg. as the Leader or eventually have the Tactical Serg armed with the Combi-grav instead.

It all depends on how I will manage to roll on the Leader's Upgrades.

What do you advice me?

Hi guys, let me get back to you on a few things.

I'm sorry in particular that this was a late reply, I just missed it yesterday:

 Toban wrote:
Kommissar Waaaghrick I have to thank you for this wonderful article.

Waiting for new adds just let me tell you that this have already motivated me and a lot of my friends.

This eve we're gonna try out a little campaing of 4 Teams.

Just becasuse I do have the painted minis I will try this little list:

Iron Hands CT
TR - 6x Tacticals - Combi-grav - 4x Boltguns - HB (ignore Cover). 104
FA - 5x Assault Marines - 2x Flamers (Fleshbane / Shred) - 2x bp/cs - Serg. as Leader - no JP - Rhino. 95

Just not sure yet if making my Ass. Serg. as the Leader or eventually have the Tactical Serg armed with the Combi-grav instead.

It all depends on how I will manage to roll on the Leader's Upgrades.

What do you advice me?

I think I really like this list. I know I'm late and couldn't help you, but how did it do please?

Because it's a good list IMHO. I don't think my buddies saw this yet, but I bet they mostly agree.

Iron Hands bionics with lots of guys and IWND Rhino, it's simple but pretty effective in our games.

You have all bases covered. With your Assault, you can get in close and use Krak Grenades.

Leaders generally die in our games unless we totally hide them, but I like the boldness of an Assault Leader.

The biggest challenge is, of course, what are your friends playing? Your list is good, but what do they got?

Hey Komm, nice to read you back.

It's gone pretty well in fact, I ended 2nd.

1st game vs Eldars, 12 Guardian Defenders with a ML HWPlatform and 5 Rangers.
Even if starting second and carefully moving my Rhino he actually wrecked it pretty effortless. However, with great pleasure for me, 2 extremely effective Flamers and the lovely Ignoring Cover HB, helped me downing 11 mesh armor in 2 turns.
He then unluckly lost o his first LD test.
On my Leader I rolled a almost useless 10 for a +1 I.


2 game vs the Sternguards + Bikers list you talked about in the article. In ALL honesty my friend wasn't particulary completely conscious after a couple of beers+whisky weird mix.. However, I played extremely conservative hiding most of my models and sending the Rhino with only the Combi-grav inside witch killed brutally his leader.
i had a little hard moment trying to kill the bikes however that even vs 2 uber Flamers and the HB resisted proudly for 2 turns.
Once again I finally won on a failed LD test.
This time rolling a wonderfull 4 on the Leader upgrades


Then what? The 4st mate came with a green Skink list that I must admit worked extremely well.

He had:
5x Lootas (tank hunter and shred).
10x shoota boyz
8x slugga/choppa boyz
a slugga/choppa leader that never ever came out of his angle
1 big shoota (fleshbane).
He gived the Leader 1W and 1I during the precious matches.

This time he almost tablet me in 3 turns. Even if I been lucky with my break tests he completely how ed me once in melee.


Is been a very interesting experience and an extremely funny stressless WH40K digression. I can't honesty tell you that everything had been played in a competitive way but we clearly had the feeling of a lot of things that could work batter and batter, elevating the play Level.

Conclusions?
- Numbers, the more models the more chances.
- Leader leadership. Even the "perfect" list could to back Home on a poor failed 2D6 roll.
- flexibility, weapons and skills combo could really transform a random models ensemble in a wonderfully effective kill team.

Have you already considered Space Wolves lists?

Here just one idea..

TR - 10 GH - Free Flamer (Fleshbane) - Free Plasmagun (Ignore Cover). 150
FA - TWC Leader (Shred). 50

Of course not over numbered and with the LD8 limit but looking about the Leader the evolution possibility are scaring ...

We're planning a little custom event during christmas days. One all night long tournament of 10/12 games depending on players. Special rule, all the upgrades on the Leader will be assigned normally by the player until the hall on the tournament and then dropped one by one during following matches by the Opponent .

We'll see

Any idea when the imperial guard will be done bacause that has me very excited.

 Insane Smile wrote:
Any idea when the imperial guard will be done bacause that has me very excited.

I do apologise, but I appreciate the courtesy you asking so nicely for that which I owe you.

Situation is...IG testing has not been going well, in addition to the logistics of the Article.

(Apparently, it's become too big. Instead of splitting it up, I'm thinking of simplifying it.)

The short version is that, unfortunately, our IG testing has been very inconsistent.

Here's our current thinking. At the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, the IG's strength really does seem to lie with its "big guns". By that, I mean their tanks, their access to quite a few Special/Heavy Weapons in their Veteran Squads. The new ruling on no Vehicles over Armour Value 33 total hit them way too hard, even though I can see a Hellhound Squadron before the rule was uber. The problem is in their Infantry, which really is very squishy, and their Lasguns just don't seem to do enough damage against anything not as squishy as they are. With Infantry playing a much greater role in Kill Team, the IG suffered.

Then, we thought we found a solution, a real God Tier unit: the Psyker Battle Squad. Although they don't operate as a Psychic Choir in Kill Team, as individuals they can be awesome with Specialist USRs. We tried these S1 Soulstorm Large Blasts with Fleshbane, Sniper, Poison (5+). That wrecked me when I wasn't prepared, with my Ork Boyz all clumped up in a piece of cover; problem was, it only works once before your opponent, even a dumb one like, figures out that I can abandon cover, spread my Boyz out, as I really have nothing else to fear. Thus, this Psyker Battle Squad didn't work out, either.

However, I'll send you our WIP post on IG now, in its very rough stage.

I'll send you what we

I wish there was more of a demand for KT in my community. I play guard and I think I could possibly make them work but I don't really have anyone to test theories on.

Stormtroopers/Sentinels?

The STR and range of the hotshots isn't great, but the AP will come in handy. Sentinel for support and troopers for cleanup.

For guard I do like the idea of Veterans in a Chimera. Quite a compact force with lots of different potential loadouts.

Wouldn't Marbo shine in kill team as well?

I have had great success with Storm Troopers in my kill team games. True that they are hurting in range but being that their guns are AP3 and no models can have armor saves against them pretty much if it wounds it kills. Also giving one a Plasma Gun with Preferred Enemy is a great way to go. Running them with a squad of veterans with a Relentless lascannon squad also gives you some board control as well.

This may be obvious to everyone except me, but does the 'no 2+ saves' caveat apply to cover saves the unit may gain in the game?

If not, that seems like it would be open for some pretty broken unit combinations (Tau Steath suit with the Jink USR for a constant 2+ in open ground comes to mind).

Basically, are cover saves of 2+ illegal or is it assumed being able to give 'ignores cover' to a specialist is enough to deal with any shenanigans?

We had a great mini tourney of this at our club recently

Dark Eldar were very effective Trueblood and Scourges - with their Dark Vision and Ignore Cover/Prefered Enemy / Relentless with Dark Lances / Splinter Cannons. The Splinter cannon is especially nasty with the ability to split fire amongst all targets.............

My Sororitas performed well - tried Serphim and Celestins (they are just better than Battle Sisters in this game) although tempted by Dominions for multi-melta guns/flamers.

I am looking at running a funsies list at the store with Harker, Marbo and a squad of vets with two sniper rifles. Not super tough or anything, more for the fun of it really, plus weaknesses aside, they've got a nice theme going on, which is what we're really hoping to go for.

If you run Marbo you should check with the TO first since the Kill Team games I have played Marbo had to start on the board and couldn’t infiltrate or anything like that since Kill team is meant to be a skirmish game with the two groups just encountering each other. Hard to justify a single guardsmen with only 12inch range that’s taking up more than a 1/4th of your army cost.

Marbo starts on the board just like everybody else, no hidden shenanigans or anything like that.

I played 3 games using Necrons the other night, and they were pretty ridiculous.

Wraith with Particle Blaster and FNP
Deathmarks x5 (Ignore Cover)
Warriors x5 (Shrouded on Leader who just hid all the time)

The Wraith was pretty useless besides being a distraction for a small amount of shooting. These things are no better than standard Marines, I'm leaving them out for more Deathmarks next time.

Deathmarks, with Hunters from Hyperspace, are ridiculous. Seeing as all my opponents only had 1 Unit as their Kill Team, I was wiping Plague Marines and Dark Angels off the board pretty fast. I think my game vs the DA it took us longer to deploy.

I thought each figure was a unit so each Deathmark chooses a single model as its target?

Did you suffer much from Night fighting?

We had a good mix from 30 Orks to 5 Wraiths

All models are chosen as a unit, so that's the way we played it.

Fair enough although I took it this bit to mean every model was a unit?:

All models operate as individual units in this mission, even if they were chosen as part of a squad or squadron. (Note – this includes upgrades that are represented by models with their own stat-line eg Tau Drones or Fenrisian Wolves).

Also did not Night Fighting reduce the effectivness of the Deathmarks?

 Panzer1944 wrote:
If you run Marbo you should check with the TO first since the Kill Team games I have played Marbo had to start on the board and couldn’t infiltrate or anything like that since Kill team is meant to be a skirmish game with the two groups just encountering each other. Hard to justify a single guardsmen with only 12inch range that’s taking up more than a 1/4th of your army cost.

Oh, great. Now you've done it. He's behind you. Right now.
And for blowing his cover, he'll go many miles just to smash my face into the keynfyrtbefvwdcwwzqzwcrvffvdtynyumujmukmlopi.ip,ukm

 Dez wrote:
All models are chosen as a unit, so that's the way we played it.

I've read an FAQ on this somewhere, and this is not quite right.

Each Deathmark should nominate one model to be marked, however any deathmark gains the benefits of shooting that model, not just the one that nominated it.
Overall this would work out similar to marking whole squads of smaller units, but would be less effective vs armies like orks.

I tried asking this elsewhere but got crickets. I need some help building a decent kill team with the CSM codex. So far I've figured out that bikers are great, MoN is great and that getting leadership trait rolls is awesome, lol. So I dunno, any tips for CSM Kill Teams? And more than just "plasma weapons wound on 2" please... if we can.

Also, anyone wanting to field a nice Kill Team for the Space Wolves should look at the Wolf Scouts and Blood Claws. They make a great combo on the field and make a lot of sense fluff-wise too.

If you are playing for fluff sure. But Claws and Scouts are obviously inferior in almost every way to greyhunters.

As far as chaos go, bikes are probably one of the best choices, Spawn might be fun too.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
If you are playing for fluff sure. But Claws and Scouts are obviously inferior in almost every way to greyhunters.

As far as chaos go, bikes are probably one of the best choices, Spawn might be fun too.

Tell that to the kill team score sheet! Lol, serously though I'm hoping my SW pal doesn't realize GH cost the same as his BC...

I have been having luck with this list for CSM KT

1 Vanilla Rhino
5 CSM, w/ plasma gun, champ w. combi-bolter
4 Vanilla bikes

Works out okay, usually give plasguy FNP to help with the gets hot, the squad leader is my KT Leader and then usually the bikes get the other two specs.

I prefer 'preferred enemy' on my plasma guns, the re-roll misses of 1's covers the overheat, and the str 7 of the plasma gun means normally only a roll of a 1 will not wound...which can be re-rolled.
Of course FNP is better for adding survivability in general however.

I used to have a kill team of six purifiers with two psycannons and a hammer. Shame that they took "daemon" out of the specialist rules, I used to give that to the hammer guy and give preferred enemy and another shooting USR to the psycannons.

Hi guys, I wanted to quickly respond. Had a long day of gaming, exhausted, not at my best, sorry.

But I read your posts over the course of the day between games.

DISCLAIMER - I feel like I have the unfortunate task of shooting down some real good ideas. That's not my intent. Here, I'm just raising RAW interpretations that your opponent or your KT organizer would mention. Ultimately, I'm just an experience congregator, pls don't shoot the messenger.

--- White Scars Attack Bike ---

White Scars with Shrouded is great, I think I'll upgrade it after discussing with my KT Kommunity. There's 2 limitations that we noticed. I still really like the White Scars with Shrouded, but:

1. Points-wise, we'd rather get 2 Marines w/ Heavy Bolters, which you can fit in a KT. With 36 inch range, we rather put them in a tower and not move them. Another alternative is, for a little more than the Specialist Assault Bike, I'd take a Specialist Landspeeder with Double Heavy Bolters and it just overwhelms with sheer dakka. That really annoyed me when I last faced it. This one is a little bit more personal preference.

2. It cannot be the KT Leader as previously suggested, because the KT Leader always has to be a character model if available, and under the KT FOC you must take something, and all other options has a Sergeant. Even if you don't want to make him the Leader, you're locked in by RAW. Unless you only take the Attack Bike Squadron and leave around 50 points unspent. But I pointed out an exception to allow for this idea! If you take a Crusader Squad, it doesn't come with a Sergeant! But then, you're locked in to the Black Templars rule, and can't use that cool White Scars + Shrouded combo you mentioned.

The person who ran the Attack Bike was maybe biased because he's very point cost-sensitive and saw those things, but conceded Shrouded was good. I'm going to upgrade the rating.

--- Storm Troopers ---

Very quickly, we agree they're hotshot guns are good against MEQs' power armour. However, they are also more expensive than any MEQ now, with all the new MEQ codices except Grey Knights and things like Plague Marines. I think the last time we fought this I was deliberately playing Imperial Fist CT Marines and I just played defensively in cover, killed enough people to easily force a Break Test. IF I did NOT play defensively (I.e. very cowardly) I might have lost that bloody. It was the fact that despite being AP3, they were still S3 guns. Remember you can't Deep Strike in KT, otherwise I could see the point of sneaking behind Marines or something to neglect covers (yes, you can give 1 dude Ignore Cover, but 1 dude), that'd be really great.

--- Chimera ---

Yeah, this is great. It's one of the heaviest armoured things you can bring to a KT, has lots of dakka already included. And it has 5 Fire Points!

Now, there's a nuance, it's that when figures are inside the Chimera, from those 5 Fire Points, they can only shoot at 1 target. I used to think it was they can split fire to 5 different things. This applies to all vehicles, but we really noticed it with the Chimera. From the KT RAW:

Transports: You may transport all members of a squad in a dedicated
transport. Straight after they disembark, they become individual units,
as per Every Man for Himself.

Your ability to split fire, even from the same gun like a Heavy Bolter, comes from the Every Man for Himself rule of KT where every model operates as a unit. For some reason, perhaps because it was abused before, when in a vehicle the models count as a squad again. So our initial idea was that you put your Heavy Weapon or Special Weapons all in a Chimera and do a drive-by, and you can, but only at 1 model a turn. It still has a use, like you put your Heavy or Special Weapon guys out in the open and have just your 5 lasgun guys in the Chimera, but I kinda felt bummed up when I learned of the RAW interpretation. We actually made this mistake ourselves before, we just felt it intuitive in KT, if you got 2 Fire Points, you can shoot 2 different targets, I mean come on.

Nonetheless, all of us agree, it's still HIGHLY COMPETITIVE, mainly because it really adds some much needed durability to IG.

--- Marbo ---

This was the thing that personally upset me because, like you, I'd love for him to succeed in KT; it seems what he's designed for. He causes a lot of argument, because there's no Reserves in KT, but he supposed can do the Look Behind You even in missions that don't allow this. It's like the real fight is in the Rules Lawyering, rather than just playing.

Beyond that, he's the cost of almost a full Veteran Squad. He still is awesome with his insane gun and knife, he might actually be worth it to take out the enemy's Heavy Weapons or Leader, if we successfully argue he could use the Look Behind You rule. But he's going to be purely a kamikaze unit, and he's really expensive for a KT.

We're not ready to disregard! I just want a cooling down period before another big fight with my friends that's not on the battlefield.

--- 2+ Shenanigans like with Tau Stealth Suits ---

We haven't faced Tau yet, surprisingly few Tau players in our FLGS, and we couldn't get an experience Tau player in our little experiments. Now, I'm the strictest guy on RAW, but even I think this is okay. Just remember, a lot of people take the Ignore Cover save on some Heavy Weapon. But that's still a pretty cool idea. In previous editions, there wasn't this 2+ save restriction and I had to face Terminators and Meganobs and it really hurts, but I can still deal with them by being a total Blood Axe.

Thanks for that idea, I still that's really cool. Srsly, sometimes these experiments are an excuse for me to buy just 1 cool unit from a Codex I never want a full army, I think I'll try this soon.

But there's 1 thing even worse, in another top-rated Codex...

--- Necrons (Deathmarks, Wraiths, then their AV33+ rule breaking vehicle) ---

There's another instance of shenanigans with I think the Necron Ghost Ark. It's legal because it's technically 11 AV each side, 33 total AV exactly, at the very threshold for a KT. Then they have that Quantum Shielding thing that gives them effective 2 more AV each side. Still not invincible, and quite pricey, but that's an even bigger exploit...and IMHO it's very legal, your opponent or KT organiser'd be a total bastich to disallow this.

Each Death Mark chooses a single model as its target, yes. Yes, that's really good. I was confused about this before, but yeah, you basically mark individual models.

And thanks for the feedback with Wraiths, honestly, this unit is fascinating to us. We haven't played with/against this yet.

We got the impression that Death Marks and Ghost Arks are so OP in a KT. Thanks for sharing that experience with Necrons. I really want to do Ghost Piratey Necron conversions.

--- Dark Eldar & Adeptus Soritas ---

Dark Eldar usually perform well. I'm given to understand they're just great against Infantry and KT's simply very Infantry based.

One of us has the Soritas Codex, the new one, we just haven't gotten around to it yet, so thanks for this feedback!

--- Night Fighting ---

Yeah, we found Night Fighting to have a bigger impact than in a normal game, too, because you can deploy so close to the objective.

I believe you're asking because you noticed that too, yeah? Yeah, something like Orks just rushing at the objective, they'll get there in 1 turn, without worrying about being gunned down by them Snipers and Heavy Weapon guys your opponents usually hide way in the back. We usually have the objective in cover, so once something gets there, they're really hard to uproot.

--- Chaos Space Marines ---

We had all sorts of ideas for CSM, then we saw the new 6th ed Space Marines. We had a huge rethink.

1 of my 1st games with CSMs, but haven't played this much since early on, needs more testing.

It came down to this, what can you do with CSM, that's better than their Loyalist counter-parts?

Sonic Blaster Marines - they can ignore cover, but taking that Sonic Blaster upgrade makes them the same price as Sternguard, whose Special Ammo allows them to ignore cover and other options, so not worth it now. Sure, you can take some cool Heavy Weapons with them, but the Sternguard can too and augment them with the Ignore Cover. Net-net, I'd go for Sternguard in comparison.

Chaos Terminators - they come in cheaper, so unlike with their Loyalists where a KT used up all the points, you can mix and match with some other Troops. Awesome...but now they're banned because of their 2+ saves.

Chaos Spawn - really awesome, these were a game breaking unit, but now they're banned too because of their W3. Really miffed about that.

Cultists - you can mix some cheap troops with some MEQs in this Codex (remember, no Allies in KT), but we don't think they're worth it.

MoN - yes, it came down to this, and even then, their T5 (or T6 on Bikes) are not completely negated because everyone is taking a Fleshbane Specialist, then maybe Sniper Specialists, or just Snipers which are really prevalent in KT because of their 36 inch range. So even though I had success with things like Plague Marines before, I'm not going to field them anymore. I would instead maybe try 11 CSM w/ MoN and a Relentless Autocannon to shoot the enemy's Fleshbane Specialist, then win a war of attrition against other MEQs.

I'm planning a 1,000 pt Plague Marine army (Chaos Lord w/ MoN), so it pains me to say, for KT, I'd go for Loyalst SM instead of CSM at the moment.

--- Next Steps ---

I'm just going to shorten the Article. I'm going to have a section on just the most common USRs because I'm always seeing the same few ones now, shorten the unit entries. Thanks for this continued feedback, this has always been a consolidation of experiences, yours and ours.

Great feedback!

Concerning the article itself, have you though of having several articles? You could have an overarching general Kill Teams strategy, then a linked article to each Army based one. It's too bad there is a restriction on the article size.

My gaming group has been playing a lot of Kill Teams lately, we're planning on more this Tuesday. I'll try something different this week and report back. Perhaps something like:

Iron Hands:

Land Speeder
-Heavy Bolter
-Assault Cannon

Land Speeder
-Heavy Bolter
-Heavy Bolter

Scouts
-Sniper Rifle x4

I'll take some pictures too, my buddy has some killer Dwarven Forge terrain.

Hi again!

I was thinking about it, and the Space Marines have already been done. What do you all think about Nids or Daemons? How do you think Horrors would work?

I'm thinking (at least until Horrors are clarified):

5 Screamers
3 Flamers

While that isn't a lot of models, it is 16 wounds. Screamers jetbike all over the board (and Slash Attack) and are Str 5 AP2 Armourbane. Flamers are Jump infantry, and all have Flamers. Granted they could be giving away +1 to FNP saves, it may be worth it for the Wall of Flame and ignores cover. On the flip side, if they fail the T test whatever I shot is dead.

So they are fast and will control most of the board, even able to hide out of LoS while doing damage, and fairly killy. Low model count, but still 16 wounds. I'd take 3 more Screamers if I had them built.

For Nids, I'd try Hormagaunt spam:

30 with no upgrades, and just giggle. 20 points leftover.
25 with Adrenal Glands. Normally Toxin Sacs would be better, but if there is a vehicle there is nothing I can do.

I can also try out some IG shenanigans, but no Chimera due to board restrictions (Dwarven Forge!)

IG Platoon:

PCS:
Sniper x4

ICS:
Autocannon
Plasmagun

ICS:
Autocannon
Plasmagun

I'm not sure if that's broken, but it sure is a lot of models and firepower on the table. Autocannons are good if they bring armor, but kinda meh otherwise besides wounding on 2's. Sniper rifles I've found are the Bees Knees. Having 25 models on the board is cute. Who doesn't love Plasma? Grunts that roll 1's, that's who Preferred Enemy and FNP should help.

Daemons are very difficult to use in kill teams imo. The biggest reason is that kill teams does not favour melee combat (even less so than 6th edition). The lack of shooting abilities of most units really hurts them.
Furthermore they usually rely on grimoire or psychic powers to buff them...which do not work on the single model squads.

Trying to use horrors in killteams is opening a can of worms. They are either the most overpowered team, or the weakest.
It all hinges on the question, does each model generate and use its own psychic powers?
If so then a horror team (22 horrors for 198 points), could potentially put out 44D6 str 5 shots per turn. (Average of 154).
If they are not allowed to do this, then they are down to a really sub par shooting phase, where the whole team would only get the 2-4D6 shots shared between them.

Flamers might work, but imo the only list that would be ok is this:

Fast Attack
12 x Flesh Hounds

...Boring, but perhaps the only viable build?

Plague drones might work, but you could only get 4 per list, which is not putting many models on the board.

Played against Tau twice this weekend, the guy brought two different teams, playing against my Guard and a full Sternguard squad.

First time: Four suits, one with two plasma rifles, two with a plasma rifle and flamer, the last one with a cyclic ion blaster and airburster.

Second time round: Six stealth suits, leader with fusion blaster and markerlight.

The first list was deemed too OP by the owner and he swapped it for the second one, which worked a lot better for both parties, when he faced the Sternguard again.

 BrookM wrote:
Played against Tau twice this weekend, the guy brought two different teams, playing against my Guard and a full Sternguard squad.

First time: Four suits, one with two plasma rifles, two with a plasma rifle and flamer, the last one with a cyclic ion blaster and airburster.

Second time round: Six stealth suits, leader with fusion blaster and markerlight.

The first list was deemed too OP by the owner and he swapped it for the second one, which worked a lot better for both parties, when he faced the Sternguard again.

How is 4 suits op? Seems like a win hard lose hard list to me, although I guess it depends on how much terrain there is to JSJ behind.

I suppose some people do not bring str 8 weapons now that heavy vehicles have been removes, but ID'ing T4 models is still viable.

Hi Dez,

Some great points, I'm weighing options on how to best organize the Article.

Re: Land Speeders, they really are great, I had the displeasure of facing them, as IG. Y'know, I might take your idea, but I'll take 2 Land Speeders w/ Heavy Bolters and a Tac Squad w/ another Heavy Bolter.

I didn't want to recommend Land Speeders initially because they're quite expensive, but after facing them, holy cow. It's the fact that you can assign 1 Specialist USR to benefit 2 Heavy Bolters on this Alpha Strike unit.

Re: Daemons, we haven't done this yet, but in our planning (before we play, we try to get the right models, proxies get irritating after a bit), we had the same exact thoughts as you on Screamers and Flamers.

But I'm with Bill, if there is something I'd field in Daemons, it's Flesh Hounds. Yes, it's limited by melee (not only is it the 6th ed limitations, but also it limits your strategic options), but it is 12 models, and with 2 Wounds each.

Re: Tyranids, I'm not the Tyranid player, but my closest collaborator is, and he mentioned the thing about Synapses and the Hivemind and how normal units go into some instinctive behavior outside your control. Not many Tyranid players in our local meta, so you probably know better than I do, pls just keep it in mind.

Re: IG. I agree, Snipers from any army always seem to do great in KT. It's the rest of the guys I'm worried about. The more I play, the more I realize it's not just the number of models, it's the number of T4 models like MEQs and Orks. T3 S3 (melee and ranged) have really been decimated, playing as and against them.

So imagine this team playing against your awesome Double Landspeeder one, and you'll see why I'm so skeptical on IG now. If I was your Double Landspeeder team, I basically see only 8 models: your 2 Autocannons, your 2 Plasma Guns, then your 4 Snipers. I take out those 4 Heavy Weapons, I own the board. So pls be careful.

Hi Brook,

I like your opponent's sportsmanship. I do exactly the same thing; after taking so many experiences from many people on KT, I deliberately gimp myself, just to encourage people to play against me and try new things.

I can see how 4 Crisis Suits are really good. There's plenty of cover to go around in KT and, with the way most Codices buy Heavy Weapons, the Crisis Suits can probably wipe out the only real threats to them once they jump out of cover, then spend the rest of the game kiting. That said, I'm more afraid of a mix of this and Fire Warriors then pure Crisis Suits. I know I'll face this sort of thing soon enough, and I can't outgun them, but I can play to the mission and hug the objective, that's probably the best...perhaps only...counter.

Excellent counter points and suggestions!

I don't have any Flesh Hounds, but perhaps I can 'counts as' my WoC hounds instead. I only have 10 of them, but they are rather cheap if I recall. I'll mull that over. I'm also thinking about the close confines of the boards we are playing on, with hallways and stuff (think Space Hulk). Screamers will pass over units and take a corner out of sight, doing D3 S4 hits. This gives hit and run new meaning!

The T3 is a valid concern, but I've found that cover is your greatest asset. I can lose a few to Ignores Cover and that's fine. You could really benefit from Forward Sentries on Vets.

Instinctive Behavior gives the Hormagaunts the Rage rule. So they get +2 attacks for being out of Synapse. I'll take that as a free boost! So for Hormagaunts:

Positives:
-5 Attacks on the charge, 4 each turn after at I5
-Reroll 1's to hit
-Fleet
-Move through Cover
-Roll 3 dice to run, pick highest
-Cheap, you can take a lot of them!
-At 2 points per model per rule, you can give them Furious Charge and/or Poison 4+

Negatives:
-WS 3
-T3
-6+ save
-LD 6

Taken en masse, may not be so bad with Adrenal Glands (Furious Charge) Potentially could surround and catch those Land Speeders and glance them to death. Then again, it would only take 3 good turns for the Land Speeders to force Break Tests.

I forgot a HUGE negative in the case of the Hormagaunts: LD 6. They aren't hard to shoot down, and even though they dump out a lot of attacks when they are up against Plague Marines they are in trouble. I kinda wish I had taken Poisoned in this case, but I know I would have wished for Adrenal Glands if there were something with higher armor involved. I lost on my first break test

In my second game, I switched to Genestealers. Normally I'd keep testing the 'Gaunts, but LD 6 just doesn't work in Kill Teams. I played vs Dark Angels, and the 'stealers ate them alive. I cleared the board, and lost I think 5 out of 14. The trick I used was rushing and overwhelming them with numbers, and if a 'stealer dropped there was one right behind it to charge in. Rending, I6 and WS6 really helped out.

I'm making this much more on the fluffy side of things, but I thought I'd share my list on here before I play this weekend (vs Dark Angels)

Ravenguard Chapter Tactics

5x Scout Snipers
-Veteran Sergeant (w/ Armorbane)

5x Assault Marines
-Flamer (w/ Shred)
-Flamer (w/ Fleshbane)
-Veteran Sergeant w/ Lightning Claw (Leader)

So obviously not the most competitive, but I think it will be a lot of fun to play

There's nothing wrong with that, tell us how it goes!

Some quick replies, I'm just prepping my Kill Team, probably going to face Eldar.

Dez wrote:I forgot a HUGE negative in the case of the Hormagaunts: LD 6. They aren't hard to shoot down, and even though they dump out a lot of attacks when they are up against Plague Marines they are in trouble. I kinda wish I had taken Poisoned in this case, but I know I would have wished for Adrenal Glands if there were something with higher armor involved. I lost on my first break test

In my second game, I switched to Genestealers. Normally I'd keep testing the 'Gaunts, but LD 6 just doesn't work in Kill Teams. I played vs Dark Angels, and the 'stealers ate them alive. I cleared the board, and lost I think 5 out of 14. The trick I used was rushing and overwhelming them with numbers, and if a 'stealer dropped there was one right behind it to charge in. Rending, I6 and WS6 really helped out.

Now I'm starting to see why my Tyranid playing friend insisted on using Genestealers after reading the Kill Team rules.

Good job with the Genestealers! I faced a similar list. 1st game, I think I had a similar situation as your opponent. On the 2nd and 3rd, I wised up, got the experience from the 1st game, and played very defensively. Just held the line in some buildings, basically forsaking the objective. I learned Genestealers always want to be charging, like you said, just overrun, but they don't like holding objectives. That turned around the entire situation. I'm guessing your opponent tried to play aggressively, taking the fight to you instead of waiting it out. That's probably his only mistake, and a very understandable one, but enough to be his last mistake.

rabid1903 wrote:I'm making this much more on the fluffy side of things, but I thought I'd share my list on here before I play this weekend (vs Dark Angels)

Ravenguard Chapter Tactics

5x Scout Snipers
-Veteran Sergeant (w/ Armorbane)

5x Assault Marines
-Flamer (w/ Shred)
-Flamer (w/ Fleshbane)
-Veteran Sergeant w/ Lightning Claw (Leader)

So obviously not the most competitive, but I think it will be a lot of fun to play

Sorry if this is late, very quick feedback. I agree with Dez, it's a good list, a real good list.

Is the Veteran Sergeant using a Sniper rifle pls? If so, just a reminder it might not be the best usage of Armourbane. An Assault Marine just using a regular Krak Grenade may more effective with Armourbane (basically guaranteeing a Vehicle Destroyed).

I actually think it's a really good list, though. Just pls be reminded to fight the temptation of charging the 1st thing you see, Assault Marines are best used hitting hard-to-hit, well-protected units. In KT, they really benefit from ample cover to hop & hide in.

 Insane Smile wrote:
Any idea when the imperial guard will be done bacause that has me very excited.

You could... play test them... your (cough) self

Alright, so just got back from my game. We both made fluffy style lists and had a good time.

He ran Dark Angels with (from memory):
3 Bikers
-Flamer on two of them
-Power Sword on the Sergeant
5 Scouts
-4 with Snipers
-1 with Heavy Bolter


The game went heavily in my favor mainly because I was better at using terrain with the Assault Marines. That 12" move just begs them to jump from cover to cover and pounce on a perfect target. That let me charge on my terms, and I managed to table him while only losing my leader and a flamer ASM.

Lessons learned:
-Raven Guard + fluffy list actually makes for a really good list. I didn't expect the two to go so well together. Rerolling charge ranges and HoW wounds is fantastic.
-A little late on the advice, but your point was dead on. Armorbane wasn't used at all this game, but the more I saw it the more I realized that it was a waste on a Sniper Rifle. I would like to keep it fluffy and give him a good specialist rule, so I'm strongly considering changing it to Ignores Cover.

For IG, vets with Harker, 3 snipers and autocannon team?

That leaves a bit left over for a sentinel w/AC and HK.

Been so long since I had a chance to play 40k, I forgot how expensive the units for IG are.

1st, thanks for the sharing on the Ravenguard team, great observations. Way to fight on your own terms, very smart.

 Civik wrote:
For IG, vets with Harker, 3 snipers and autocannon team?

That leaves a bit left over for a sentinel w/AC and HK.

Been so long since I had a chance to play 40k, I forgot how expensive the units for IG are.

IG has been not great for us. It's sort of like the Special/Heavy Weapons or Vehicles were the only things that count.

Everything else are just corpses-to-be. Special characters like Harker are cool, but die fast and are too costly.

Sentinels are cool, with just their multi-laser, when made a Specialist with a USR, you can save points on that.

May I recommend maybe a Chimera instead of Harker? And play defensively, IG are sadly not great for KT.

(I'll try to get our notes on the IG up ASAP, I have to shorten everything to fit).

What about this for IG:


Ratling Squad (30pts)
3x Ratling -Shred

Veteran Squad (120pts)
4x Lasgun, Mortar, 3x Plasma Gun -Fleshbane (Mortar team)
Veteran Sergeant -Leader
Shotgun, CCW

Scout Sentinel (50pts)
Missile Launcher, Smoke Launcher -Shrouded

Thanks to Civik and Mr. Omega for asking our opinions. It's just me right now, most of my circle of friends are traveling for the holidays.

(And of course, as usual I invite everyone to participate. I'm consolidating not just our local group's playtesting, but reports everywhere.)

You both made smart lists, it's just KT is a little against IG. In the case of Harker, it's just all the IG Special Characters are too costly.

Sentinels are good. Ratlings are good. Special Weapons are good. It's basically Lasguns and even Krak Grenades haven't paid dividends.

So what I see as working is how you're spread your points so you have many threats. I can't just send an Assault Marine at your Ratlings, I have to worry about your Plasma Guns, your Mortar, your Sentinel. As long you spread your forces as well as you spread your points, so that I have no clear idea of what I should strike and waste my turns/resources/men going all over the place, then your opponent has the same problem.

If I seem harsh on IG, it's only because I think their Codex is harsh on them. Many of their units are more expensive than even Marines now.

---

Tonight (my timezone) I just really reworked the article to have almost a full IG unit review. I want to sleep on it, take another look in the morning, then post it. It's our best, most genuinely felt view on IG in Kill Team, even if it proves unpopular.

I know this is a gamble, but what about Marbo? "Manliest Man in the Imperium of Man" jokes aside, do you think he's got a viable place in a Kill Team game or just another points sink? I mean, one well placed demo charge could wreak so much havoc

He'd need to get in range first, which can be quite a chore seeing as he can't pop up anywhere unlike regular games.

Oh shoot, I didn't know he'd lose the ability to drop in from anywhere in a KT game. Sorry, just got the rules and am excited to play my first game soon, but def missed that crucial point. Such a shame because Marbo would have been boss in this scenario.

I just want to clarify, his entry says that he always starts in reserve even in missions that do not use the rule - but will that supersede the rule set of KillTeam?

Yeah, the rules sadly specifically say so. :(

Which is why I was looking at Harker, since he gives his entire squad scout, stealth, and move through cover. You can give Harker Shrouded(as a specialist) and keep him away from anyone with ignores cover.

Sadly, it appears you're better off with weight of numbers fielding a basic platoon.

In Kill Team Harker doesn’t give out his unit bonuses (aka Move through cover) he’s the only one to get them. There is a reason why the higher the point value the game is the better IG armies are since they can diversify better than any other army in my opinion. In these low point games guard really don’t have any take on all comers build. I have pages of list that each kill be very affective in one way or another but also have glaring weaknesses.

The only character upgrade I ever purchase in KT is a commissar just so I have a LD 9 on the field and allow me re-rolls if needed.

New Kill Teams rules are up via the Black Library and App Store. Here are a few changes from the last rule set:

Leader models roll on a chart like Warlords
Individual models make break tests
Models within 6" of the leader who passes break auto pass
6 Missions
3 wound models allowed
No 2+ saves
Brotherhood of Psykers is out

Still reading, I'm sure I'll find more!

MAJOR NEWS AS PER THIS UPDATE


Kill Team was a free skirmish ruleset offered by Games Workshop, but as of this writing today, it is now a paid online supplement at:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/warhammer-40-000-kill-team/id775959071?mt=11

Below, for now, we have the previous (free) version, as well as our Tactica based on that ruleset. We're reviewing the new rules.


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Hi guys, while I was working on the update with the Imperial Guard, I found a paid supplement for Kill Team was released today.

(The free rules that the Article was so far based on had been removed for a week or 2, and I guess this was why.)

I've already looked over the rules. Now, this is just me, I haven't talked to the Kill Team Kommittee of friends, but IMHO:

Infiltrators - previously, you can't use the Infiltrate rule, but now you can. Still no Deep Strike nor Flyers

Multi-shot Weapons - previously, I in particular favoured them as they can split fire, but they can no longer do so

Non-Transport Vehicles - can no longer be Specialists. The insane Landspeeder Specialist is no longer a threat

Forgeworld - the KT rules used to specify no FW stuff. Nothing's mentioned here. Potentially huge loop holes

An Allies Loophole - it says your KT has to be "from a single Codex". But different Chapters are in the SM same codex

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Some of these changes make sense, like Infiltrators are now really, really useful for these Delta style games. That's good!

But here are my predictions, on the day of this new KT ruleset release, on what's going to be the Killer Kill Teams:

Sniper Team - many Snipers have Infiltrate or Scout. Great in the old KT rules, even better now. They'll be very common

Some FW Imperial Armour Book Exploit - I'm not familiar with many FW units yet, but I can see some exploit happening

Mixed Space Marines - because of the "from a single Codex" rule, I bet there will be some IH + WS or something

Sniper kroot just got ridiculous. Just taking 10 costs 70 points but infiltrating snipers are brutal in such small games. Morale is an issue but really, 24" snipers on infiltrating models where the standard army is about 10 men? Nasty.

As for FW, I can't think of anything hugely game breaking other than maybe hornets and sabres. Acanthrites would be annoying too but with these new missions (especially the escape from a table edge one), they're really rewarding horde armies over the smaller, elite armies tha the old mission favoured.

I believe you may be overthinking the 'from a single codex'. There is still a force org and no allies.

I would also argue the Harker not conferring Catachan Devils on his squad since he confers it at time of purchase for the squad as an upgrade and they don't lose Catachan Devils on his death. It isn't like a ministorum priest or other character joining the squad and then being separated.

I asked about the Harker thing at YMDC and thankfully, I got away with my sanity and dignity intact. Also, according to the wording, only Harker benefits from the rules.

Sorry for necroing anything but since this is an article I wanted to ask has anyone tried using a squad of stormtroopers in killteam? Their lasguns ignore 3+ armor and each model infiltrates in independently. Maybe give one a plasma gun (preferred enemy) melta gun make it mastercrafted, and give a trooper poison attacks? I've been tempted to do this and I know typically stormtroopers are expensive in regular 40k but kill team seems like they were made for this.

Thanks to the new rules I really think Storm Troopers got a major boost. Before the range was killing them but now that they can all infiltrate again it puts you right in range on turn one and, if there is some LOS blocking terrain, possibly in double tap range. Would recommend giving one the sniper rule so you can then be wounding marines on a 4+. Had great results with a 5-man squad with a plasma gun with a veteran squad backing them up. Also didn’t hurt to have a lascannon with the ignore cover rule obliterating something every turn.

 Panzer1944 wrote:
Thanks to the new rules I really think Storm Troopers got a major boost. Before the range was killing them but now that they can all infiltrate again it puts you right in range on turn one and, if there is some LOS blocking terrain, possibly in double tap range. Would recommend giving one the sniper rule so you can then be wounding marines on a 4+. Had great results with a 5-man squad with a plasma gun with a veteran squad backing them up. Also didn’t hurt to have a lascannon with the ignore cover rule obliterating something every turn.

So you had 15 bodies then yea? what worries me is the low leadership though. I was wanting to do 10 stormtroopers, but I think maybe more bodies might be in the guards favor for killteam. Though their ap3 lasguns pretty much chew up infantry. I might just start 10 ST and see how it goes.

Kommissar Waaaghrick, I can't help but notice you didn't talk about vehicles outside of the Chimera in the Dakka Article.

I feel like you really need to mention that AV10 and especially AV11 stuff gains a lot of traction and viability in Kill Team it wouldn't have in regular games.

1) Chances are most armies only have one weapon that can really deal with it. Space Marines and their Chaos equivalents are one of the only 6E armies that can reliably go after vehicles with every last guy because Krak Grenades. The vast majority of other armies don't have better than S4 weapons or punchings without spending extra points to get it.

2) For Space Marines, Rhinos need to be discussed. Rhinos are amazing in Kill Team, better than Razorbacks despite being a lot cheaper. Biggest reason 2 firing hatches. Each model is it's own unit therefore the two guys firing out of them can do so at different units. Plus the Rhino itself still has a Storm Bolter which actually matters in Kill Team. It's the best way to protect your heavy weapons guy if you choose to bring one. I know a guy who just gives his HW guy "Stealth" and parks him in the back, and I snipe him every game with my own HW guy that I give Ignores Cover.

Also, if your models break, the dudes inside are Fearless. Keeps at least the two guys you leave inside from fleeing.

3) I've had a ton of success bringing a Heavy Flamer Land Speeder to games. AV10 is just hard to hurt, and the mobility with the heavy flamer is one of the best ways to punish people with high model count. I highly recommend giving it a shot alongside a Tactical Squad.

edit again: Oh man I didn't realize how old this was as a thread necro. We really should go update the Kill Team Tactica thing to include as many armies as possible.

So I played a game with Tau today. I find it's either win big or get stomped, but it worked out pretty well today.

List:
Crisis Team, three Shas'ui
Two Burst Cannons
Shred
Two Burst Cannons
Preferred Enemy
Two Plasma Rifles
Ignores Cover

Fire Warrior Squad
Six Fire warriors

The Fire warriors didn't do much (anything), but the Crisis Team carried hard. I was against Marines, who had a Tac squad, Sergeant with Combi Melta, Specialist with Meltagun and Relentless Missile Launcher.

Playing Tau in Kill Team I think requires you to utilise two main strategies: JSJ, mainly LOS hopping, and fire lanes. The Fire Warriors worked more as a deterrent than actual damage, only firing twice in the whole match. The Crisis Team had to close to enemy threats, pick them off, then Jump out of sight - usually over terrain. The first to go was the missile launcher. The Fire Warriors bubble wrapped the objective and babysat while the Crisis team practised target priority.

So, Tau in a nutshell: JSJ (never forget this, it will save your Crisis suits. You're not that tough), Fire lanes and board control (Or, the reason you bring Fire Warriors, regardless of how they can't seem to roll higher than a 2 to hit), and target priority.

I'm considering Pathfinders, but the Crisis team killed pretty much whatever it shot at without needing markerlights, usually putting ~4 wounds on target, or 1-2 AP2 Ignores Cover wounds.

Why Shred on a guy with two burst cannons? The Shred USR in Kill Team is melee only.

 SRSFACE wrote:
Why Shred on a guy with two burst cannons? The Shred USR in Kill Team is melee only.

Oh, now he tells me
Basically, because I derped.

Actually, better question, why not fleshbane?

Exact same reasons. It's also melee only.

Your guy with Ignores Cover is the weapons specialist, the guy with preferred enemy is the guerilla specialist.

You could try Poisoned (4+), as that only applies to shooting. I think Burst Cannons are at least S4, so you'd reroll your wounds against any target with = or < your weapon strength. It'd basically function just like the way you thought running him with Shred would, and it's the same specialist (Dirty Fighter).

You could also try Indomitable Specialist and give him Eternal Warrior so he doesn't get insta-gibbed by Melta or Rocket Launchers, or try Feel No Pain so he's just that much more of a monster to kill.

I've figured out why I derped, and it's because we were running off the older KT rules (Where shred applied to both ranged and close combat).

As a side note, I take it the KT rules are different enough to be worth buying then?

Whole new mission types, leader traits, actually owning the rules to refer to things.

I really believe so, yeah. I've had a lot of fun with Kill Team with the new ruleset, even just daydreaming different unit builds.

 SRSFACE wrote:
actually owning the rules to refer to things.

Heh, that's what I get for assuming GW wouldn't change anything

Still, rare to hear that something's worth the price from GW. I'll have a look, cheers

Nice read on Kills Teams. Like the tackics.

Any chance you have a Eldar one for review?
Gona to do my first KT battle on Saturday. Against SM-Salamanders.

Gona take the following teams;
KT1: WraithBlades x 6
Spec1: Instant Death
Spec2: Rending
Spec3: Eternal Warrior

KT2: Rangers x 5 and WarpSpiders x 5 w exarch
What Spec's do ye recommend?

KT3: Rangers x 5 and Striking Scropions x 5
What Spec's do ye recommend?

Thanks

The articles mention new updates since the 6ed rules. Is it official or something you guys made up to improve Kill Teams? (want to know if most people play that way)

Is there a special place to discuss Kill Team specifically?

Anyone have experience with the Tyranids in kill team? Kinda wondering if there's difference to some rules.

You should try do some work with Dark Eldar, they work exceptionally well in kill team. They have very tricky and powerful kill team lists including the Splinter Boat which consists of a Raider with all the trimmings transporting a unit of Warriors or Trueborn with the Trimmings. This is simply brutal because of a single upgrade, Nightshields. Nightshields -6inches off of any unit wishing to target the Raider. Boom, Melta's are now useless, you out range Plasma Guns by 6 inches and can obliterate most units without them even getting to fire back.

Another good unit is the Reaver Jetbikes, you can get a unit of 9 with a Champ, 3 Special Weapons and 3 Caltrops all into 200pts. This is a good list because once it gets going nothing on this earth can catch it, with a 12'' move then a 36'' turbo boost no army can effectively stay in range if the DE don't want them to, all the while throwing out 6D3 Str 4 auto hits and 3D6 strength 6 auto hits, separately. Suggested USR include both Stealth and Shrouded for 2+ cover saves on the guys with Blasters.

Hi guys, long time no write. I've been lurking a long time because we sort of took a break around Christmas, with the last update being the collected notes I got from everyone before they ran off. Since then, we've been busy. By that, we mean busy with Kill Team, too! Look at all the things that came out. Whole new codices, like the IG are now Astra Militarum. New online codices, like the Inquisition. New supplements. Even a new edition, 7th.

And those changes have been good. They've been great. I got pantsed by IG, which hasn't happened since I started the article way back. The Inquisition is really exciting. And we're really trying new things again. With the changes in 7th settling, it's time we update this with the things we wanted to do, but with 7th in mind. We know now the changes are incremental, BUT we are using this ability to review everything before. It's the right time.

liquidjoshi wrote:As a side note, I take it the KT rules are different enough to be worth buying then?

Yes, IMHO. In comparison to other ibooks, this is better than the the SM codices. I thought the Soritas was okay, I'm intrigued by the Inquisition, but I think the new Kill Team book is better than all of those. The reason and the test is this. Those other books appeal to people who already want those armies anyway; they weren't changing minds (Exception - the Inquisition kinda changed people's thinking from GK). Now, when we show people the new Kill Team book, even those that before said "no, no, this is noob stuff, no interest," they're changing their minds. They see the rules are mature now, and have project ideas.

Let's be fair and be critical of the new rules, though:

The Bad - the new rules governing the Specialists are written in a confusing way, due to all the exceptions to how the USRs are applied. Result - it's much less user-friendly to new players, and sometimes veterans.

The Good - but the exceptions do make sense and get rid of exploits even I mentioned. And the new rules and the Mission conditions make the fluff come alive, like you feel it's a covert, behind-enemy-lines Kill Team!

I was kinda miffed with the new rules because they negated some of the tricks I used to use. That was a kneejerk reaction. However, the more we played, the more we realised those new rules, those new missions, those new exceptions, all added up to more fun. Final point here, there's a relation to 7th edition, with unbound armies. People are going to try new units out they previously wouldn't use. Kill Team is going to be a nice driving range for that.

SRSFACE wrote:Kommissar Waaaghrick, I can't help but notice you didn't talk about vehicles outside of the Chimera in the Dakka Article.

edit again: Oh man I didn't realize how old this was as a thread necro. We really should go update the Kill Team Tactica thing to include as many armies as possible.

I in particular used to talk about Vehicles in Kill Team. In fact, in the opening I mentioned 3 things that catch 1st-time Kill Team players unexpected was hordes, marksmen, then Vehicular Manslaughter. So I don't disagree with you, but I still feel that most Vehicles work only if your opponent doesn't expect it. It's a trick that works once (per opponent or people watching), because once they seen it, they know to prepare for it. Anti-vehicle weapons are plentiful now. Ultimately, I cut it out due to page constraints.

On that note, I previously wanted to keep the article to one page if possible. But I may change that now, with this article focusing on the Kill Team book, general considerations, and the missions. Then we have a 2nd article just focusing on Imperium units (which with new things like Soritas and Inquisition, deserves it), then perhaps a 3rd one on Xenos and Chaos if it comes to that.

Speaking of Vehicles, we're falling in love with the new Armoured Sentinel. It's one of those things we won't take to a large-scale battle, but in Kill Team conditions, it's quite ideal and I really like the fact that, yes, it makes sense it does great there. It's a reminder of how Kill Team isn't simply a lower point, scaled down 40k game, it's its own beast. It's guerrilla warfare and units that you "feel" excel there DO excel.

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:You should try do some work with Dark Eldar, they work exceptionally well in kill team.

Yeah, they do. I'm not the Dark Eldar expert, but part of this crew are, and we're discovering how they're very anti-infantry, very strike-hard-strike-fast, ideal for the Kill Team environment. And to my understanding, they have a gap in their capabilities...they don't deal well against Vehicles without Heavy Support. So yeah, Vehicles! One of the many points to revisit.

So going forward, we are doing the following:

1. Re-org the article. Make sure everything is up to date with the new codices and 7th. Make it more reader-friendly

2. Add new content. There's insights beyond just unit testing we found. Not rules lawyering, just new insights

3. And new units. There's so many, so we'll focus on all the codices released since 6th, and the most Kill Team-adapted units. On this, we found there's very really no wrong answers, every unit allowed in Kill Team offers something, as long as you have a solid Core (usually composed of regular troops, and obviously there are exceptions). That Core is key, and we all know that, but I feel more emphasis should be placed on it.

DId you ever make a 7E version ?

I tried reading the 6E version, but it is empty.